Thursday, August 5, 2010

Constructive Termination at FedEx Freight ?

The term “constructive termination” describes the situation in which an employer makes job conditions so intolerable that the employee is forced to quit. Those employees may have legal rights to compensation when this happens.

Employers use many methods to force people out their jobs. For example, they might freeze an employee out of important meetings, give the employee demeaning tasks to perform, or increase or decrease work hours to an unacceptable level. They may allow the targeted employee’s co-workers to sexually harass her, or permit her supervisor repeatedly to pass her over for a promotion because she is African-American. Whatever the method, the goal is to make the work environment so miserable that the employee will simply quit.

What Motivates the Employer?

There are many reasons an employer might try to force an employee out of the job, from personality conflicts to dissatisfaction with performance. However, this method of going about discharging an employee can leave the victim confused and angry. Why would a supervisor, upper management or the boss do this? The answer is probably a simple one, such as:

Management is uncomfortable with confrontation and wants to avoid directly disciplining or firing the employee The manager gets personal satisfaction from being a bully Management erroneously believes that the company is protected from suit for wrongful termination if the employee leaves “voluntarily"

Damages Available to Victims of Constructive Discharge

Each case of constructive termination is different. When determining what damages are appropriate, the employer’s level of fault and the type of harassment may be weighed against any fault on the part of the employee. Depending upon the facts of your particular case, you may be entitled to recover:

Back pay Pay that you would have earned in future had you not been forced out Damages for mental distress brought on by your constructive discharge Punitive damages; and/or Attorneys’ fees

When You Are the Victim of Constructive Termination

What can you do when your boss or supervisor uses pressure to force you out of your job?

If you have quit due to your employer’s wrongful actions, don’t despair. Even though you are the one who ended the employment relationship, you have not necessarily let your employer off the hook. Courts may treat an employee’s resignation as a constructive termination if it can be shown that the employer deliberately made working conditions so intolerable that any reasonable employee in that situation would do the same thing.

Don’t let your employer get away with unlawfully taking away the job you trained for and worked hard to get. To find out if your situation entitles you to relief for constructive discharge, talk to an experienced California wrongful termination lawyer. With the advice of an expert employment law attorney, you’ll get the answers you need.

The Angela Alioto Law Group is dedicated to helping people who have been treated unfairly by their employers. Contact our firm at 866-590-6554 to schedule a free consultation with one of our attorneys.

3 comments:

Let me say that Fred Smith is a damn hypocrite himself, he has threatened to shut FedEx down if it organizes a union among us employees. Why? When he himself is in organize corporate C.EO. Union! He belongs to the high society of a union, and that is the U.S.Chamber of Commerce. They have membership, fees, meetings, lobbyist and ranks and files just like the Teamsters. The US Chamber Outspends, Outshouts Average Citizens An epic financial collapse caused by greed and fraud that throws millions out of work. Nearly 50 million Americans without health insurance. A climate crisis that threatens our children’s and grandchildren’s future. As the nation turned its attention to fixing serious problems that have festered for years, U.S. Chamber CEO Tom Donohue raised an unprecedented $100 million to fight every legislative change being debated on Capitol Hill.

February 24, 2010: Dean Henderson’s career with FedEx ended abruptly when a reckless driver plowed into his company truck and mangled his leg. His doctor will decide this week if it needs to be amputated. No longer able to drive, stripped of value in our commodity culture, he was tossed aside by the company. He became human refuse. He spends most of his days, because of the swelling and the pain, with his leg raised on a recliner in the tiny apartment in Fairfax, Va., he shares with his stepsister. He struggles without an income and medical insurance, and he fears his future.

Henderson is not alone. Workers in our corporate state earn little when they work—Henderson made $18 an hour—and they are abandoned when they can no longer contribute to corporate profits. It is the ethic of the free market. It is the cost of unfettered capitalism. And it is plunging tens of millions of discarded workers into a collective misery and rage that is beginning to manifest itself in a dangerous right-wing backlash.

“This happened while I was wearing their uniform and driving one of their company vehicles,” Henderson, a 40-year-old military veteran, told me. “My foot is destroyed. I have a fused ankle. I have had over a dozen surgeries. It hurts to wear a sock. I was limping pretty badly, but in the spring of 2008 FedEx said I had to come back to work and sit in a chair. It saved them money on workers’ compensation payments. I worked a call center job and answered telephones. I did that for three months. I had my ankle fused in January 2009, and then FedEx fired me. I was discarded. They washed their hands of me and none of this was my fault.”

I was rear ended while working my 24th year at fed ex express wich totaly debilitated me,i was harressed by fed ex express...both of my doctors had me out of work and fed ex terminated me after 8 months on comp...have class action law-suit...